House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal explains why changes were made to the anticipated Blood and Cheese moment in season 2’s premiere. The two characters, Blood and Cheese — a big and brutal member of the City Watch and a ratcatcher in the Red Keep, respectively — are two killers who are hired by Daemon to assassinate Aemond Targaryen, implementing the old and cruel punishment of an eye for eye, or, in this case, a son for a son. The two assassins don’t end up killing Aemond, but, instead, kill someone who’s much more innocent and undeserving, Jaehaerys, the young son of King Aegon II and Queen Halaena.

In an interview with TVLine, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal explains why certain changes were made to Blood and Cheese and their horrible interactions with Team Green. The most glaring change was the complete removal of Aegon and Halaena’s third and youngest son, Maelor. This change was made because, according to Condal, there simply wasn’t enough time to include him. He says that the first season already included the constant recasting of the children, which ultimately led to Aegon and Halaena’s children being much younger. Read his full comment below:

Ryan Condal: ‘I mean, just very simply, Maelor (was) not even born in the storyline. We did have to compress time in Season one to make it so that we didn’t have to recast every character on screen. We were just recasting the kids, so to speak, as we went along, and part of that meant that Aegon and Helaena’s children were younger, as are Daemon and Rhaenyra’s children younger at the very end of this, because not as much time passed after their marriages to give time for all these kids to grow up.

The other (element) was just wanting it to be this very visceral experience that happens to Helaena, who I think a lot of people would argue is the most innocent person on either side of this conflict and just sort of finds herself in the crossfire of this tit-for-tat kind of punch-and-counterpunch that’s going on between the sides. It felt like that was the core dramatic point that was important to be made.’

The Changes to Blood and Cheese Explained

The events are much darker in Fire & Blood

In usual George R. R. Martin fashion, Blood and Cheese were much worse in his book Fire & Blood. In the book, Cheese gags and bounds the Dowager Queen Alicent, while Blood strangles her bedmaid. They then wait for Halaena to bring her children to Alicent before bed, a nightly tradition. When Halaena arrives with Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, and Maelor, Blood bars the door and slays her guardsman, while Cheese snatches Maelor.

In usual George R. R. Martin fashion, Blood and Cheese were much worse in the book Fire & Blood , the book that House of the Dragon is based on.

Halaena pleads that they kill her instead, but Blood tells her that “A wife’s not a son. It has to be a boy.” Blood and Cheese tell Halaena that she must pick one of her sons for death, and they threaten her with the rape of her daughter if she doesn’t choose quickly. Halaena eventually chooses Maelor and Cheese whispers to the two-year-old boy that his mother wants him dead before grinning at Blood, who then instead beheads Jaehaerys.

Another change is that, in the show, it is clear that Rhaenyra and Daemon want Aemond dead and that Jaehaerys only dies instead because Aemond isn’t found. In the book, it seems like Jaehaerys or Maelor were the prime targets. This speaks to the show’s less demented depiction of Daemon. The events of House of the Dragon can often be grim, but, in this particular scene, it’s probably for the best that the show didn’t adapt the book faithfully — the threat of rape and the diabolical teasing from Blood and Cheese might have made an already unsettling scene even darker.